Philosopher's Stone

There is always something to write about. If there's not then you need to live life more aggressively.

Min Kim
********************

I was speaking with someone recently who asked if I categorized myself as a philosopher. I responded that I am one who tries to figure things out and understand them. If that is what a philosopher does then I guess I qualify.

I think too many people have a vision of a philosopher as someone who sits secure in an ivory tower of university tenure spending hours contemplating a comma, instead of someone who grapples daily with himself and his ideas in a gladiatorial arena, striking all opinions that come his way against the touchstone of reason before accepting or rejecting them. A philosopher is both architect and builder in a world in which mentality has a direct effect on reality. He is also a traveler on a road where other philosophers before him have marked out mile stones.

Life is an energetic and aggressive thing if properly lived. It's energetic because it requires a moment by moment commitment to preserve itself and it's aggressive because it means not giving in to the things that would cause it to become dormant. I'm for a two fisted approach to gravity, that which both keeps my feet on the ground and wants me to sink into it. I want to grasp important and complicated concepts and not let go until I understand them. Does that make me a philosopher?

Life is a vital thing. Even in the midst of grime and ugliness it enables me, it gives me permission, to make and appreciate beauty. I'm glad to join the treacherous intellectual dance of being wrong, being corrected and being right. I enjoy peering with curiosity and wonder around any corner, under any stone and into any book. Does that make me a philosopher?

I'm a former street bum who grew up in poverty. I've been an actor, a broadcaster and a musician. I've had more love affairs than I want to think about. Along the way I'v developed a keen appreciation of the ironic and paradoxical which has given me a sense of humor. Now I write and paint. I don't know who I am or what I am and I don't know enough about the world around me, but I am on an adventurous and seemingly destnationless journey to find out. Does that make me a philosopher? If not it doesn't matter.

DB - The Vagabond